Exhibition progress & reflections

To make the work of internationally renowned artists accessible to remote communities in North Cornwall

There were 1269 visitors counted plus the numbers attending the Preview, Discussion Afternoon and Celebration. Forty-five adults attended the Discussion afternoon and there were more adults and children at the Celebration than we could count. (There are more details re. our audience at the end of the report.)

“An excellent idea – to be able to see such a varied collection without having to travel to the Tate at St Ives.”

“Good to think pieces from Truro Museum are being seen in different localities –good involvement with children’s workshops.”

“Great mix of artists. Good to see a public collection”

“I thought there were some absolutely beautiful pieces of work – very inspiring – a lovely exhibition.”

“Brilliant – showed the range of work in Cornwall – influences of art on each other and made me think of the more famous artists too.

To raise awareness of the Cornwall Schools’ Art Collection by inviting teachers and schools to the galleries

Two letters providing details about the exhibition were sent to 35 schools.

10 schools (395 children) booked workshops at the Castle.

To engage school children with influential pieces of artwork from a range of artists through inviting schools to visit and promoting the workshops relating to the art on display

How successful were the holiday workshops, school visits and Royal Cornwall Museum Learning Team workshops? Details can be found on our blog.

Feedback from teachers: “The exhibition was wonderful and it was great for the children to be actively involved. Thank you for allowing our children to be involved with their group and also for the organized (Christmas holiday) workshops. We really hope it can happen again. “

Free Range Kids (Home Tuition Group)

“The children thoroughly enjoyed their morning and it is great to develop links between us and Royal Cornwall Museum.

The last day of the exhibition has arrived and it’s been a busy one. Many schools have visited through the workshops or on their own and today two made a last minute visit as well as Falmouth Look Group who made the journey to take a look and indeed stayed on for the final celebration.

The idea of the celebration was to mark the end of the exhibition after all the workshops had been completed and children had the opportunity to come back with their parents. It also gave Bude Look Group a time to come together with the staff from Bude Castle and other people involved to give thanks and celebrate the fruition of all the hard work

Special thanks was given to Marine, a young french girl who was staying with one of the Bude Look Group members to improve her french and she volunteered her time to sit in and invigilate the exhibition for more than half of its entirety .

A highlight was the appearance of Brian Hanscomb who made the draw . The ispy sheets enabled us to collate information about the visitors to the exhibition and in thanks for doing this, their sheets were put into a draw, the prize of which was a visit for 4 to Tate St Ives and Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Garden.

Four workshops were funded by the group through our fundraising and grants. This allowed the Royal Cornwall Museum to send their workshop leaders up to us in Bude. Most of their normal school workshops are held at the museum itself, so this was a new experience for all.

Today it was the turn of Bude Infants School in the morning and Kilkhampton Primary School in the afternoon.

The caretakers at Bude Castle and Heritage Centre prepared the rooms with work tables and Susannah and Jane brought the materials they needed, which included clipboards for the children to work from and various media including pencils, coloured pencils, wax crayons aqua crayons, metallic pastels and oil pastels.

I had a quiet five minutes in the one of the two gallery rooms and made a very short video reflecting on the artwork by Brian Hanscomb.

After this was made, Brian Hanscomb visited the exhibition himself. He was extremely pleased to see his artwork on the wall and what I thought was a cad drawing on the bottom half of the work was actually entirely pastel. The work is so perfect and he actually mentions how spiritually calming it was doing all the dots for the pebbledash. Incredible.

Here is his letter to the exhibition that he left on the wall with the other comments.

Our workshop helped us to think more deeply about the artworks in the exhibition. We talked about terms like abstract, realistic or figurative, media and how people link colours to emotions; then we matched vocabulary with artworks. Before we knew it we were able to discuss the artworks and think more about how artists communicate with us through their work.

In the introduction we shared what we knew about art. We talked about how people link colours with emotions.

We worked in teams and decided which pictures we should place our words beneath. We neded to think about our decisions.

Here are the words we placed beneath Portrait of Alison. One card was blank and we chose to write imaginative on it.

These words were placed beneathe Louise McClary’s Up the Creek

Then we used question cards to help us discuss the paintings in our small groups.

The aim of the exhibition was to engage the audience with the art, to help them enquire a little beyond what could be a fleeting browse. To help them we have provided several different means, including I Spy Sheets, Quest Cards, Booklets and large question labels with post its.

I SPY SHEETS

The I Spy sheets are hugely successful as they provide a starting point for conversation between invigilators and visitors. They also slowed the progress around the galleries so that people could take in more.

Admiring the Roger Hilton

The Labels

The transparent, extended labels looked good and contained some information about the artist, the artwork and made links with the theme of the exhibition. It was satisfying to see how many people were reading them.

Laminated, bound booklets contained the additional research on artists undertaken by members of the Look Group.

The Booklets

The booklets contained additional information about the artists particularly other examples of their work. Visitors did not voluntarily pick them up. The Look Group decided to dismantle one booklet and mount the A4 sheets below the appropriate artworks. Viewers were interested to read further.

Quest

Quest Card

The Quest questions, for which we are grateful to Tate St Ives, have been mounted attractively, laminated and collected on rings. They are lovely to hold and excellent at triggering thoughts and discussion. However, people do not voluntarily pick them up. Nevertheless, two local primary schools are bringing groups of children to the galleries especially to use them with the I Spy sheets and Budehaven (GCSE and A level art students) are likely to use some as homework. We will certainly be using them at future Look Group meetings.

Question Labels

Five artworks have additional transparent labels that ask thought provoking questions and ask the viewer to jot down some thoughts.

Beach 2 by James Van Hear was introduced by Jan and Christine without sharing the title.Beach No 2, by James Van Hear 1922-91

DO YOU THINK IT WAS PAINTED ON PAPER?

Several said no and guessed plastic, glass, wood and clay. We talked about hard shiny materials and one child nearest the label shouted copper. Three of the children knew this was metal.

Introduced the task of making a collage using different papers and cloth.

Most of the children had made a collage in the past and one child explained it very well.

What can you see?

One boy thought it was washing on a line with the sky behind. I’d never considered that idea but it’s a good one. Three others agreed but the rest thought it was a beach scene with clothes drying. We briefly discussed the absence of figures.

The children arranged a towel, costumes etc. on the floor.

Figure by Roger Hilton Cornwall Council Schools Art Collection

Figure by Roger Hilton

Explanation of static and dynamic with everyone demonstrating the difference through frozen stances and actions.